Steroid Speculation

August 19th Update: Roger Clemens and Johnny Damon on steroids? Find out if The Rocket got a boost and The Idiot really is an Idiot at this link.

August 11th, 2005:

We aren't big fans of the whole steroid controversy here at The Roto Authority. We're about fantasy baseball, and whatever happens to Rafael Palmeiro won't have a huge effect on the game. Jason Giambi caused a ripple, but people we already dropping him due to poor performance.

That said, we think it's time to go out on a limb and speculate. It's not fair, maybe it's not right, but fantasy baseball is all about predictions. So we're going to take a guess.

Will Carroll's Under the Knife column today takes the high road and refuses to speculate, although I'm pretty sure Will already knows who the player is. In case you didn't hear, a "young player" is likely to be identified by Major League Baseball Friday morning. This is supposedly a bigger name than Palmeiro.

If we didn't have the "young player" caveat, I'd throw out Ivan Rodriguez as a possibility. With only nine home runs this year, you never know. Also working against him is that he was named in Jose Canseco's book.

Canseco also named Miguel Tejada, who is 29. Tejada has three homers since the beginning of June - could his power drought mean that he's off the juice? Remember, this is a team with Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa already on the roster. It's not too far a stretch. If Tejada came up positive, the Orioles' reputation would really plummet.

Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Beltran are two star players who might better qualify as young. We just hope it's not Cabrera, as that would be quite damaging to the game. He's been on a tear since the All-Star break. There's no real reason to suspect him of using steroids, he's just the youngest star player in the game. As for Beltran, Ben Valentine weighed in on the steroid possibility among others over at Sportszilla and the Jabber Jocks last Friday.

If you're not completely satisfied with this speculation , you might want to try playing Roid Roulette to make it even more interesting. And if you're looking for an in-depth look at steroids in baseball, Will Carroll's The Juiceis a must-read.